Students and community members alike sat wide-eyed as they listened to political activist Tariq Ali speak last Monday as a part of the Foreign Affairs Symposium. In his lecture, he presented his view of the greatest threat to our world today: Western Imperialism.
According to Ali, the two primary examples of western imperialism that have thrown the world into chaos are Israel's "illegal" occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and America's preemptive invasion of Iraq.
To Ali, these are the true destabilizing forces in the world today. Terrorism that has occurred as a result of these invasions is not really terrorism, he said, but actions that constitute a just struggle of liberation from the oppression of this Western imperialism.
I'm sorry, but I don't quite agree with Ali's main presumption.
Did he mean to say that the events which resulted in Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza are analogous to the events preceding the recent war in Iraq?
Did he mean they are both a result of imperialist powers simply exerting their influence at will?
Did he mean that the vicious terror used as means of resistance to such 'imperialist' powers is morally justifiable?
This cannot be the case, and any review of the facts would find fault in his notions. The Six Day War of 1967, in which Israel acquired both Gaza and the West Bank, was started not by the Israelis but by Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser. He ordered the withdrawal of UN Emergency Forces in the Sinai, then closed the Straits of Tiran to all Israeli shipping (violating a 1957 declaration by the UN).
Both Jordan and Iraq joined the military alliance with Egypt and Syria, announcing to the world that their "basic objective will be the destruction of Israel."
Now, given that you grant Israel the right to exist, I'm not clear how Israel's decision to execute a preemptive strike was one based on imperialist motives, seeing as the imminence of invasion by her Arab neighbors had been made indubitably clear.
Furthermore, even after the start of the war, Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol told King Hussein of Jordan that Israel would not attack its territory (including the West Bank) unless provoked. Nevertheless, King Hussein ordered the shelling of West Jerusalem.
Thus, regardless of how Ali might disagree with the 'defensive necessity' justification associated with Bush's campaign in Iraq, negative claims of this sort cannot be directed towards Israel's actions in '67. The facts clearly demonstrate that Israel's preemptive strike was both defensive and necessary; it was not an act of imperialist aggression, but rather a preventative measure to ensure Israel's own survival.
Dr. Ali's belief that the events following the '67 war were analogous to that of Bush's occupation of Iraq remains ungrounded. I'm not going to pretend that what went on in the Territories following the '67 war was not in violation of many Palestinians' fundamental human rights; the Palestinian people have endured tremendous suffering and action needs to be taken to remedy the situation.
However, blaming Israel for all that transpired and justifying terror as legitimate means to solve this problem is not only counterproductive, but extremely dangerous to those involved.
Firstly, terrorism existed against Israel before Israeli exerted any control over the Territories; Yassir Arafat founded his "Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine" (Fatah)in the early 1960s and began executing terrorist raids against Israeli targets in 1965.
That's two years before the 1967 War, in which multiple raids were carried out exclusively against civilian targets.
Thus, to highlight "the bitterness and despair," imposed upon them by the 'imperialist' Israeli rule as the sole cause of Palestinian terrorism (as Dr. Ali does), is a huge misreading of the situation.
Accordingly, I do agree with Ali's assessment that no real terrorist acts have taken place in Iraq; but that is not because I wish to grant any moral justification for it.
No terror has occurred there simply because there are no American civilians to target.
A fundamental difference exists between pursuing soldiers in uniforms and killing innocent civilians; resistance of the two movements, therefore, is incomparable and should not be treated as such in any analysis of the situations there.
Thus, as you can see, Ali's words last Monday left a definitive impression on me as I sat wide-eyed and listening with the rest of my peers. However, I am unable to accept his neo-Marxist ideology of capitalist Western imperialism which clearly distorts the facts on the ground.
Ali's understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is one based on false pretenses, and it can only further exacerbate the situation there.
Yonina Alexander is a junior International Studies major from Haifa, Israel.
